


Après-midi d'un faun

by eyeslikerain



Category: Secret History - Donna Tartt
Genre: M/M, Richard is gay, honeymoon in the country house, once more in the boat, post-murder, sex on the lake, trying to forget together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-21
Updated: 2017-03-21
Packaged: 2018-10-08 20:45:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10395714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eyeslikerain/pseuds/eyeslikerain
Summary: Sometimes, I couldn’t suppress the thought that we two alone would manage to get out of the whole story relatively undamaged as we moved on fairly quickly after the unfortunate incidents. We didn’t dwell on it, we rarely even talked about it in that first time of blissful erotic explorations. Of course, there was the occasional nightmare both of us had to endure. But it sure helped to not be alone when waking up from one of those.





	

Francis and I continued seeing each other as much as possible in the weeks after Bunny’s funeral, always anxious to hide the true nature of our progressed intimacy. We had never talked about why we wanted to be secretive, but I guess we were both convinced all of us needed a bit of a relief and an opportunity to find our old balance as a group again. Bunny’s death had ripped us apart for a moment, like an earthquake, like an enormous boulder falling from high above into a tranquil lake. Without talking about it, we wanted to give us time for the waters to close again, for the surface to obtain it’s former smoothness.

Nevertheless, we spent as many nights together as we possibly could, arousing only the suspicion of Judy Poovey who grilled me for news of my sudden mysterious girlfriend whenever she got hold of me. As we preferred sleeping in Francis’ larger bed and enjoyed the privacy of his apartment after some less comfortable nights in my dorm room, she didn’t see me as often as she used to and jumped to all sorts of queer conclusions:  
“It’s not that scary Camilla, is it? And her being the only girl in your Greek class – is it somebody from French?”  
I couldn’t hide a smile, pitying her simultaneously for her limited approach to possible erotic partners.  
“Ah, your face just lit up! Who is it? Tell me! Are you planning to take her to Paris? I think this must be soo romantic”…

Of course, it was Henry who found out first. And why didn’t it surprise me? On an ordinary Tuesday, Francis and I were having a quick breakfast before class. We were clearly in a state of post-coital bliss, not yet dressed, not caring, when a sudden knock on the door startled us. He got up to open it. Henry came into his apartment without asking for permission and, walking to the kitchen, explained:  
“Sorry to disturb you this early, Francis, but my car made strange noises and I managed to get an appointment with “Redeemed Repair”, but they asked me to be there before nine. Would you – “  
with this he saw me sitting at the kitchen table in one of Francis’ a bit more subdued bathrobes. I felt slightly confused, but also annoyed in a strange way. To me, he had always seemed like the great puppeteer – we were his tiny puppets and he ordered us around like a conductor, deciding what moves we should take next. Unthinkable that we would decide for ourselves, be it what we ate, and where and when, to whom we went to bed with, obviously. He stared at me, his face expressionless and cold, and said.  
“Well.” Francis had come up behind him, leaning his hands on the chair in front of him. “I see.”  
“Would you be as kind as to explain to us what you think you are seeing?”, he snapped. He glanced at Francis first, then at me, silently, and added:  
“I always saw it coming.” “So apparently you knew more than me myself.”, I replied. “Yes, I knew that also.”  
Francis went on in Latin, slowly, with a deliberate hostile undertone. Henry answered equally and they continued for a few seconds. As I still didn’t understand any Latin, all I could do was sit there and stare from one to the other, feeling oafish and inadequate. Finally, Francis slipped back into English:  
“Come on, Henry, leave him alone. What time do we need to start then? Do you want a cup of coffee?”

A few weeks later, Francis and I got the unforeseen chance to spend a long weekend at his house, just the two of us. With Bunny still around, this would have been impossible – he would have wanted to know why, he would have poisoned everything by malicious comments, we even would have had to be aware of his borrowing a car somehow and following us. Henry seemed more wrapped up in his own world than ever before, and the twins were out of town to visit a wedding. Francis joked later: they had the wedding, we the honeymoon. Because that was how it felt, all three blissful days long: we barely got out of bed and just didn’t get enough of exploring each other in all possible ways and in all possible and impossible rooms of the dim, Gothic mansion.  
For me, it was still far from normal to live an everyday life in such a dwelling that was an odd mixture of awe – inspiring remnants of times long gone by and a sort of dusty tomb to the history of his family which he revealed to me one by one. To my delight, it was a never – ending story of quirky characters which was not surprising if you knew Francis himself or his mother. Had some of their wild streaks run in their ancestors, they sure must have roused some excitement among their contemporaries.  
A great– great – grandmother had been a fine pianist and had even studied with Liszt himself in Weimar, breaking several hearts while her stay there and coming back to Boston a renowned and sought – after artist. The magnificent mahogany grand in the library had belonged to her, and that was one of the few pieces of furniture that didn’t become an intimate witness to our lovemaking. Without speaking about it, we tumbled on onto one of the sideboards, avoiding the aged, shimmering wood – maybe because of the red haired ancestor, more probably because the piano reminded us heavily of Charles’ playing. And for Francis, surely, of Charles himself.  
I knew he was still attracted to his angelic features even if they were clouded over in these days by alcohol and gloom. I remember the entranced look on Francis’ face, late at night on some autumn evenings, when Charles did him the favour of playing some Chopin. There was a nocturne Francis loved especially, and it was a pleasure in itself to see him get absorbed in the delicate, ornate music, so ethereal and elegant as he himself, old – fashioned and out – of – place like the house itself, but with the same quality of timeless beauty in it. 

Summer came early and with a vigor nobody had expected after the interminable winter. On our second day in the country, it grew so warm that we decided to get on the lake in the old rowboat. Francis still wore his bathrobe, I had changed into summer linens found in his bedroom. The heat made me drowsy, the soft rocking of the boat augmented the dreamlike state I was soon in. Reclining, letting one hand hang over the boat, Francis got hold of my gaze. Our eyes locked. Rowing slowly, almost hypnotized by the steady motion, I couldn’t take my eyes off him.  
“Do you remember…” he mumbled.  
“Of course.” I answered, knowing instantly that he meant one of our first outings in the boat together.  
“You said “no” then. Did you mean it?”  
“I - I don’t think so.”  
He sighed. “I was suspecting it.” 

He leant back a little and loosened the belt of his bathrobe. I smiled:  
“What are you up to? Do you want to seduce me?”  
He nodded languidly.  
“But not out here in the open. Why don’t you steer us into the reeds?”  
I did, let the boat get stuck in the shallow waters and got instantly on my knees, brushing his bathrobe apart. He let out a surprised gasp when I took him into my mouth, clenched his fingers around the side of the boat and moaned. Our movements set the boat into a slight slingering motion. When I felt he would reach his peak soon, I laid my hand onto one of his and pressed it, not only out of passion, but in order to steady myself in the shaking boat, holding desperately onto the one thing which was the very reason for our shaking and trembling, looking for stability in the very thing which caused our unstability – a strange metaphor for my world these days.  
After Francis came with a gasping cry, I let my head sink onto his flat stomach and listened to the rapid beat of his pulse. We were both covered in sweat, but I didn’t want to move.  
“Crushing my hand…”, he uttered in a strange, dark voice I had never heard before.  
I lifted my hand and loosened his cramped one from the rim of the boat, holding it and letting our intertwined hands slowly sink onto the floor, limp and hot. Putting my head on his stomach again, I had a sudden, strange feeling of clarity, like a revelation or a long yearned for, but unobtainable insight: I was complete. All of a sudden. I wasn’t in the confused state anymore in which I had spent the past few months, I wasn’t denying myself something I knew was an essential part of me, I was in an unexpected way feeling whole. Like the splinters of a kaleidoscope which looked like a chaotic, mixed up mess, but turned by a little slide into a perfect, orderly geometric pattern. I was whole and complete, and sure of myself like never before.  
And I should notice in the following days that this new inner strength spread into everything I did, from the way I looked at the world to the way I interacted with others. I didn’t have to pretend anymore. Outwardly, I hadn’t changed. Apart from Francis’ splendid old suits he had given me, I still only had the two jackets and five shirts I had worn all the weeks in Hampden and still not much money to spend. But inwardly, I was all different, and I was convinced that this new strength would help me endure whatever might come.

Francis was different, too. We never had laughed so much like in the last weeks. I actually hadn’t known he could laugh like that, and I was amazed to discover that he was a much more lighthearted and carefree person than I had assumed. Being away from the rest of the class certainly helped. Of course, there was a certain doom and gloom which always accompanied us. Being united in the knowledge of two horrible incidents and fearing discovery, it had been awfully difficult to get on with an unsuspicious routine at all, let alone get lighthearted. Sometimes, I felt very old among them.  
It had to do with their personalities: with Henry around, nobody really dared to get too frivolous or secular, and he invariably managed to draw Francis especially into interminable, heated arguments about facts or happenings that were settled about two thousand years ago, but nevertheless held the potential for whole evenings of discussions. Camilla was silent and torn between her genuine love for Henry and the much older, but difficult one for her brother. And Charles, not coming to terms with his own sexuality and loving Camilla in a pathologically possessive way, got drunk much too often recently.  
Being alone with Francis was like entering virginal, unknown terrain. It was like starting afresh on a new canvas, and uninhibited by the others and in our blissful seclusion from the rest of the world, we had the chance to get to know each other in unexpected ways. I discovered a much more youthful, easygoing version of Francis and was equally enthralled by it as I had been with the mysterious, aloof image of himself he had cultivated the months before.

Sometimes, I couldn’t suppress the thought that we two alone would manage to get out of the whole story relatively undamaged as we moved on fairly quickly after the unfortunate incidents. We didn’t dwell on it, we rarely even talked about it in that first time of blissful erotic explorations. Of course, there was the occasional nightmare both of us had to endure. But it sure helped to not be alone when waking up from one of those.  
I am not sure if Francis felt the same but for me Bunny’s presence was more tangible in the old mansion than on campus. I knew this wouldn’t change soon, so I just had to live with it: suddenly seeing him peering into the refrigerator, tattering down the dark old staircase in his pyjamas, sending his hollow laugh over the empty lawn where he used to play croquet. I had somehow to come to terms with it. But as he wasn’t the only soul whose presence I sensed in the dim house, it didn’t make so much of a difference – strange as it may sound to an outsider.  
Sometimes, when thinking back to those happy, happy times we had here in October, I wished we all could start over from there afresh. And I wished the Gods would have mercy with us – Zeus himself having a word with Dionysos, suggesting not to support those queer humans by appearing at their supercilious endeavour, asking Artemis and the maenads not to get down to this cold spot on the northern hemisphere, in short: to avert the circumstances which led to the first murder.  
But my wish was futile, and we just had to face what was coming, being united forever in a very strange way. 

 

After our intimate encounter, I had stripped and jumped into the lake, swimming all the way back while Francis slowly rowed beside me. I got hold of the boat and lifted myself out of the water a little:  
“Francis, I want to turn this boat over, spread you onto it on your stomach and have sex with you all afternoon.”  
He sighed contentedly: “Sounds tempting. But it would give Mr. Hatch a heart attack all right. So please refrain from it as I cannot see myself mowing the lawn for the next twenty years.”  
“Really?” I rocked the boat gently and smiled up to him.  
“Stop it! I won’t get into this water, just think of my hair!”

The next morning, I found him early on the veranda, in every little detail the picture of respectability I already knew: wearing a freshly pressed white shirt with cufflinks, the silver teapot and a white, dainty cup next to his elbow, books spread out on the table in front of him. Over his head, lush clouds of honeysuckle spread their tantalizing smell and gave the picture a Victorian reminiscence that was almost too much to bear. Could a murderer look like that? So put together and well groomed? And he was a sort of murderer, I thought. Even if he only happened to be present by bad luck at the first one, he could have prevented the second one.

I wrapped my arms around him from behind and buried my nose in his warm skin. Letting go of his pen, he rested his hands on mine.  
“Still at that Lukretius?”  
“Yes,”, he sighed, “but I’m finally getting into it. Though Julian clearly overrates my Latin skills here.”  
I kissed him on the cheek and sat down in a wicker chair.  
“You know”, he said, poising his hand with the pen on one side of his face, looking out dreamily over the lake. I expected some profound remark about the beauty of late Latin or the astonishing insight of Lukretius’ observations, but he went on:  
“Mr. Hatch won’t be able to work here as hard as he does forever. Maybe, once they retire, we could get us a gay couple as caretakers. We could place an ad in, say, a San Francisco paper, asking for someone quite intrepid. Maybe the former owners of a really perverted nightclub or so who have seen everything and wouldn’t be shocked to see us fooling around here. We could take a trip there, interview them and engage the most fearless ones. What do you think about it?”  
“I think I know the reason why your translation is getting on a little slowly”, I smiled.


End file.
